Kingdom Hearts Short Story Collection
by Isabeau1
Summary: A collection of short stories centered predominantly around Riku, although other characters do find their way in.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: I thought I would put up some of the drabbles I did using prompts from the khdrabble livejournal community. There are more drabbles and other writing on my livejournal.

As usual, I own nothing. All characters belong to Disney and Square Enix.

* * *

**Lullaby**

Prompt:Lullaby

Notes: The song "Home is Where the Heart is" is from Tale Spin.

Riku's mother never sang him lullabies. If she knew any she was too busy to pass them onto her son. Sora's mother sung old island songs, songs her mother's mother had learned as a child, but as often as Riku heard them, they were Sora's lullabies, and it wasn't the same.

So Riku learned at an early age to fall asleep to the sound of the wind through the palms and the constant crashing of the waves. It wasn't a true lullaby, but as a child it had been enough.

The first true lullaby Riku ever had was well away from his childhood. Lost in the endless darkness of Kingdom Hearts, too tired to go any farther, too frightened to sleep, he had stopped, and stood with darkness pressing all around.

The king sat himself down as if he were at a picnic, relaxed and unafraid, and started humming to himself, a melody Riku didn't know, but it was better than the roar of darkness that filled his ears, and Riku crept closer.

Sound shaped into words and Riku forgot to listen to the chittering of heartless, their endless and insatiable whimpers of hunger. Instead he sat, and before he knew it, he was curled on the ground beside the king, almost close enough to touch.

"Home is where the heart is, where ever you may be," Mickey began patiently picking knots out of muddied silver hair. "There'll always be a home for you, here inside of me."

Riku yawned, and for a moment forgot to be afraid, instead remembering the wind through the palms and the crash of waves. But wind and wave had gone silent when the darkness came, and when Riku had finally remembered that silence, found it echoed in the chamber where Sora had chosen to fall, and Kairi could only stare and tremble, he had learned to believe that nothing was forever.

"If ever I'm not with you, if ever you're alone," Mickey seemed oblivious to the sudden shuttered that racked his young companion's form, continuing his steady efforts to untangle his hair. "Remember where my heart is, and you'll always have a home."

Riku stopped hearing the phantoms of waves and wind, the hiss of hungry shadows, and the every present darkness, and all he heard was Mickey.

And for just a little while, for just that moment it took for him to drift off to sleep, Riku believed that there might just be something stronger then the darkness.

"Home is where the heart is. Here my heart's at home, and you'll never be alone…"

* * *

**Fade**

Prompt: Desire

Riku had wanted the stars once. He had wanted each and every one of them to hold in his hands and do with as he pleased.

The desire had faded quickly when he found himself able to touch them, but alone. The witch had been there then, to whisper in his ear that he was strong and brave, and he could have anything he wanted. He had told her he wanted his friends, and she had twisted and tangled the want until he had wanted to be the one to save them more than he had wanted them.

From there it had only been a small push on the part of the heartless to make him simply want to win.

Now he sat in darkness atop a tower of faded memories in a form that wasn't his, and he was too tired to want anything for himself. Instead, he wanted the hero to return home safely to the princess, and the king to return to his queen, and all of them to live happily ever after.

Then, maybe after that, after darkness had faded into dream, and the stars had stopped falling, he would be content to simply fade away, and finally, finally rest.

* * *

**Legend **

Prompt: Paopu

"Selphie get down."

"But I want one."

"Get down. I'll get it for you."

Selphie hopped off the curved trunk, and Kairi climbed up, using her keyblade to flick a paopu down to Selphie's waiting hands.

"Thanks Kairi," Selphie beamed. "But I'm still not telling who it's for."

Three guesses, Kairi thought dryly, and the first two don't count.

"Why don't you get one to share with Sora?" Selphie asked.

"Sora and I are good," Kairi looked across the water to where Riku and Sora sat at the end of the dock fishing.

"But it would be so romantic," Selphie giggled.

Kairi stopped herself from rolling her eyes, because Selphie was her friend, and most of the time she liked her. Instead, she picked one for herself, just to forestall any arguments.

Kairi wasn't interested in romance. Romance was for fairy tales, and she had had her fill of those. She had been the damsel in distress, and the princess waiting in the tower, and she didn't care for it.

As Selphie ran off to corner the unsuspecting love of her life, Kairi walked to the dock and sat herself down between her boys. Riku raised an eyebrow at the bright fruit.

"Selphie?" Sora guessed.

"Yeah," Kairi nodded.

Kairi started to toss the fruit into the sea, but Sora stopped her, trading his fishing pole for the paopu.

"You know, Selphie kept going on and on about these things, so I asked my mom," Sora studied the fruit thoughtfully. "She said in the old legends there wasn't any romance. People would give them to loved ones when they left the island, like a good luck charm, because paopu trees are strong enough to outlast any storm, and the fruit is star shaped, and stars shine forever. So I guess when you share one, it's supposed to be like sharing your strength with each other forever. That's what my mom said, anyway."

Kairi contemplated the fruit in Sora's hands for a moment, then traded him back his fishing pole for it. She swiped Riku's fishing knife from his belt and cut the paopu into three even pieces, giving a piece to each of the boys. The flesh inside was a sticky summer red, and Sora grinned as he took a bit.

Riku hesitated, fishing pole balanced between his knees, juice running sticky down his hands.

"The stars came back," Sora said, leaning forward to see him.

"And the paopu tree is still there," Kairi pointed out.

Riku nodded, although it was hard to tell if he was convinced. He bit into the soft fruit anyway.

The fruit was sticky, but not as sweet as she had thought it would be, and Kairi found that even though she had lost her taste for fairy tales, she might still have a soft spot for legends.

After all, underneath all the years of telling and retelling, legends were suppose to be true.

* * *

**Rain in the Rabbit Hole**

Prompt: Wonderland

Rain pounded loudly on the roof and Riku sprawled in darkness, not by choice so much as by necessity. When the palm trees bent so low their leaves left patterns in the sand it was time to close the storm shutters.

It didn't bother him though. The storm had finally cut away the heavy heat and the rain reminded him of a tin roof on some half forgotten world where he hadn't quite slept through the night, but there had been something soothing about the sound and the way it made Mickey's ears twitch.

What world had it been, he wondered, hazy and sleepy now that the storm had done away with the choking stillness. He couldn't remember, and he wasn't sure it mattered. Like home, with an ocean of grass instead of salt water. Maybe.

Riku stretched and yawned, saw thunder and heard lightening, and wondered if it hadn't been home, the little world with the tin roof and the rolling grass waves. Hadn't Mickey said they could tie a sail to the wagon they had seen abandoned along the road and sail instead of the endless walking?

Maybe he had said it. Riku didn't think they had done it.

Wind laughed, like a child in the trees, and Riku kicked his blankets to the floor. The air was light, but the night was still warm. Would he know that world if he ever went back to it, recognize the tin roof that had made Mickey's ears twitch? A little haven of soothing storm amidst the darkness that bit and gnawed until he bled.

A rabbit hole he slipped down, every now and then.


	2. Chapter 2

**All the Rest**

Prompt: before

Before Mickey had been king, he had been a bungling apprentice to the greatest wizard in the known world. But Yen Sid had looked at him and seen everything that would make him great.

Before Mickey had been a wizard's apprentice, he had been a wanderer, who thought himself brave and too often found himself foolish. But Goofy had looked at him and seen the one person who would stand up for what was right, no matter how foolish it seemed.

Before Mickey had been a wanderer, he had been a lazy deck hand on a tiny riverboat. But Donald had looked at him and seen someone who never settled for less than what he wanted, even if he took the long way getting there.

Before Mickey had been a deck hand, he had been the son of a banker, in a little town, on a little world. But Minnie had looked at him and seen her whole future.

And for that, Mickey had done all the rest.

* * *

**My Dearest Minnie**

Prompt: Letters

_My dearest Minnie,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. Every day I miss you more and wish I could be home with you. Soon. This will end soon, I promise. I wish I could promise you it would end in a happily ever after for everyone, but we both know that can't always happen._

_I have faith in the keybarers, though. Every day I watch Riku grow stronger, more determined, more wise. I watch him master a darkness that has consumed all it touched before him. It lingers still in the deep places of his heart, places he's too afraid to let the light touch. I'm afraid for him. I'm afraid of how much he's willing to give up, how far he'll go, to see this through to the end. But I don't lose hope._

_Someday, Minnie, you'll meet him, and finally get to know someone as brave as you are._

_Until then I miss you always and carry your love in my heart like a lantern, to light the way on the darkest paths. Have faith in me and in these children. They have the strength to undo what has been done, to set right the wrongs that brought darkness into our worlds._

_I'll be home as soon as I am able._

_With all my love,_

_Mickey_

* * *

**Smile **

Prompt: Kodak Moment

The queen would always remember the first time she saw him, stepping uncertainly from the shadows of the promenade into the sunlit inner garden. He had been wary and tense until Mickey called him over to help him sort Dalmatian pups from their pile of spots and yelps.

He had smiled then. It was like a summer night that smile, warm and clear and easy.

Minnie would come to learn that that smile was a rare thing. Half-smiles that never reached his eyes, self-deprecating laughs that covered over what hurt, he gave out freely, but that one smile only the patient and the persistent saw. It became Minnie's own little quest to catch that smile somewhere it wouldn't fade.

She tried to draw it first, thinking she could freeze it in charcoal and paint, but Riku always moved at the last instant, turned away just before she could lay the last line that would lock it into place. Mickey laughed at her sketchbook full of unfinished smiles, and picked his favorite to keep on his desk, next to the photo of their wedding day and a very worn crayon drawing of a lollipop Minnie had given him when they were ten, and she hadn't had the pocket change to buy him a real one. He had written her back a little note she still kept in her jewelry box that said she was sweeter than any candy.

Next she tried the camera, thinking it would be fast enough to catch him, but it wasn't. She ended up with piles of photos of the back of his head, the fall of his hair, and the just missed edges of his laugh. She framed a photo of him sitting on the garden wall with Sora and Kairi, heads bowed over the heavy book in Kairi's lap, his eyes just shy of that smile, and put it on their nightstand next to the photos of Minnie's nieces and Goofy with his son.

Mickey snatched the photo of Riku leaning on their balcony railing, peaceful in the twilight, his hair the color of starlight in the falling dusk. It was months before Minnie found it, a bookmark in the king's favorite book.

By the time the queen and king's first child was born, Minnie had all but given up on ever catching that smile, and had resigned herself to only enjoying rare fleeting glimpses of it. She had had her camera in hand the first time Mickey had placed the tiny baby in Riku's arms only because she could not take enough pictures of her husband and child together. She didn't know what she had caught until the developed photos came back to her.

And there it was. That summer smile as Riku gazed down in adoration at the tiny life in his arms, and Mickey beamed at them both.

Minnie framed the photo and hung it above the fireplace in their sitting room, and Riku smiled every time he saw it, like star shine on a summer night.

* * *

**Night Garden**

Prompt: Sanctuary

Notes: This takes place toward the beginning of **Smile**

Minnie found her husband's star child sitting in the damp grass of her night garden, absorbed in the tiny unfurling petals of the star moss that covered the far wall. Night bells bloomed on either side of him, and a dusky moth had landed in his hair. Minnie tucked the image away for her sketch pad and cleared her throat softly to let him know she was there.

He jumped and turned to look at her, dislodging the moth from his hair. It fluttered up, seeming almost as indignant as the boy was surprised. Minnie hadn't thought it possible to surprise the battle weary child. She felt a little thrill of delight in knowing that he could still lose himself so completely in something as simple as a flower.

"Queen Minnie," even in the moonlight it was clear that his cheeks colored a charming red, and he started to scramble to his feet. "I can go. I didn't know this was your garden…"

Minnie waved her hand dismissively. "No stay. It's not really my garden. I found it."

"Found it?" he sat back down, careful not to crush any of the night bells.

"While Mickey was gone," she nodded and sat in the grass across from him, paying the dewy wetness no mind.

The boy winced slightly and looked away, his fingers curling into fists against the ground.

"Daisy hovers like an old hen when she worries," Minnie said as if he hadn't reacted at all.

He gave her a puzzled look.

"Sometimes, I just needed time to think without her worrying," the queen continued. "And sometimes I just wanted to miss Mickey in peace."

"I'm sorry he had to be away so long," he replied, his voice as quiet as the warm night breeze.

"I knew that he would leave," Minnie laughed softly. "I knew that when I married him. I knew that before I married him. I knew that before even he did, I think. Mickey has never been the sort of person to walk away, and I wouldn't ever want him to be."

He couldn't protest that, because he wouldn't be sitting there under the moonlight, amidst the night bells and star moss, if the king had been anyone other than who he was. He wouldn't have been sitting anywhere, in fact.

"I used to walk the gardens after Daisy went to bed, but they were always so dark and gloomy," she slipped her shoes off and dug her toes into the damp grass, remembering for just a moment being a child on the banks of the river and counting the stars as they came out. "Then one night I turned a corner and found this garden."

She took in the whole of the small garden with a wave of her hand, all the pale blue and white blooms, the moon lilies and the night crawlers and the moth that had settled in the boy's hair again.

"It's my night garden," Minnie smiled.

"How do they grow in the dark?" he reached out tentatively to touch one of the night bells beside him, and dew fell from it in silver drops.

"It's what they were made to do," the queen shrugged, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

He laughed then, and a swarm of fireflies were startled from the grass. They rose up around them and for a moment it was as if they were sitting in a cloud of stars. She watched the wonder on his face, unguarded for just a few brief moments.

Someday, he would be her star child as well, and she would find the same joy Mickey did in watching him shine when all else had gone dark.

* * *

**Just a Cold**

Prompt: sickness

It was just a cold, he had sniffed, then sneezed, then sniffed again. The king looked unimpressed.

"You remember last time it was just a cold?" Mickey's tail thrashed just a little.

"But that was on the Twilight Path, and it was wet and cold all the time," Riku sneezed into his sleeve. "Your library is a little drafty, but I'm wearing a sweater."

"Go to bed," Mickey said uncompromisingly.

"But…" Riku frowned; he was comfortable on the sofa, and he was just getting to the good part in the book he was reading.

"You were delirious with fever for three days, and six weeks later you were still coughing," Mickey was not amused.

"But…" Riku protested.

"Go to bed. Take the book with you if you want, but go to bed," Mickey insisted.

Riku sighed and pushed himself off the sofa, sneezing as he did. After all, Mickey was king, and it was his castle, and he was right about the last time Riku had gotten sick.

But who knew a mouse could be so pushy?


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: There's nothing new here. These were all posted on my livejournal and I hadn't realized they weren't posted here.

**Drown**

Prompt: drown

Riku had nearly drowned when he was seven. He had been caught in a riptide and pulled out to sea. He had been scared at first, had fought for sky and light and breath, but he had grown tired of fighting quickly enough. He had only been seven, and the dark water had been cool against yesterday's sunburn, and it didn't take very long for the pain in his chest to go numb.

Sora's father, a fisherman, had seen him go under and managed to reach him in time. Riku had woken to light too bright and the heady smell of a fish filled hull. He had missed the cool darkness, and his chest had ached for days.

It had been months later, on a perfect summer day, with the sand warm under his toes and Kairi and Sora shrieking with laughter as they all played tag together that Riku had finally realized he was glad to have left the darkness behind, because this was so much better than the cold and the numbness.

The darkness of Kingdom Hearts was icy cold, and his chest ached until he went numb. After the numbness set in he stopped fighting. With Sora and Kairi safe on the other side, he couldn't find any reason to.

It was Mickey who hauled him onto deck this time. The light was too bright, and his chest ached so badly it was hard to breath, but the mouse king promised as he held him close that the light would stop hurting and the ache would fade into something so much better than the numbness.

Riku remembered warm sand under his toes and Kairi and Sora shrieking with laughter and thought maybe there was something worth leaving the darkness behind for after all.

* * *

**Road to Dawn**

Prompt: in darkness

By the time he found his keyblade, Riku had been wandering in darkness so long he had gone blind. He probably wouldn't have found the keyblade otherwise. The king had walked right by it.

Mickey seemed unaffected by the darkness. He was strong and bright, and the shadows cowered away from him as he passed. Maybe it was his hope that kept the darkness at bay, or maybe it was his queen. He talked about her more then he talked about anything else, even saving the worlds.

When Riku thought about Sora and Kairi, thought about the little island that used to be home, it only hurt. He looked at memories of warm sand and laughter, of wooden swords clacking together in endless sunlight, and barely recognized them. They were someone else's memories, someone else's home, and he felt like a peeping tom for seeing them, like a thief come to steal something precious that he had no right to. The darkness seemed preferable to that.

Maybe Mickey had been right when he had told him, so very gently, as he examined eyes gone blind, that he had to choose to leave the darkness, he had to choose to see.

But Riku did see.

He saw the world without color or light, but he saw it in immaculate detail. He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but he saw everything. He saw the desperate hunger of the heartless that trailed after them always, longing for hearts that were too strong to be stolen away. He saw the king's strength and courage, and he saw how he glowed when he talked about his wife.

And he saw the keyblade, buried under layers of darkness and forgotten years, lost to the endless depths of Kingdom Hearts. It pulsed like something living, the first heartbeat that wasn't his or the king's that he had found in this place.

He didn't realize he had strayed from the king's side until he heard Mickey calling for him, but by then his hands were already wrapped around the hilt, and the weight of the blade had settled in his heart, like a heavy blanket on a cold night.

He didn't believe that he would ever see daylight, or color, or home again, but with his keyblade firmly in his grasp, Riku could see the road to dawn.

* * *

**Things that were, things that are, things that will be**

Prompt: dreams

Sora dreams of twilight town, the endless in-between, never night and never day. Sea-salt ice cream and harmless games, Struggling in the back allies and skateboarding down the streets. A summer that was never his, but he misses all the same.

It's not the only place he dreams of.

Sometimes he dreams of the other in-between. Tall, dark buildings, more menacing for their hollowness, and neon, glowing in a mockery of light. Sometimes flashes of red hair, sometimes silver, either way his chest aches. Sometimes there's blood. He wakes up feeling sick, because the blood was someone else's.

Not all dreams are hollow though, not all dreams make him ache. When they camp on the beach, the three of them, he dreams of the here and now. Riku mending fishing nets, laughing at Sora for tangling their lines again, Kairi glowing in the firelight as she helps them cook their catch.

And the endless sky that fills his dreams, from one corner to another, with more stars than there is sand between his toes. It stands behind his closed eyes, ever patient, until he is ready to travel it once more.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's note: These are newer drabbles, but still all ones that have been posted on livejournal.

**Disquiet**

Prompt: disquiet

"You should get rid of the boy."

Maleficent raised a graceful eyebrow at the sorcerer, "Jumping at shadows again, Jafar?"

"Hardly," Jafar wrapped his boney fingers around his staff.

He was, of course, correct in this. The boy was no shadow. He was flesh and blood and beating heart, which was perhaps the most disturbing thing about him. Anyone else would have long ago lost himself and dissolved into ravenous empty hunger, skidding mindlessly through the darkness, seeking endlessly to sate the insatiable.

But not Riku.

This was, of course, why she would not be getting rid of the boy.

"Your fears are… quaint," she drawled, knowing that pride was ever waiting to send the sorcerer sprawling. "The boy will serve his purpose and most likely be lost in the process. There will be nothing left of him to fear when this is over."

"And if he isn't lost?" Jafar was unruffled, apparently still feeling he had the upper hand in the conversation.

"Then I will have a new pet," Maleficent replied airily.

"As you wish, Maleficent," Jafar's voice oozed with insincerity; he did not believe the witch capable of keeping the boy.

"Of course," Maleficent did not watch the sorcerer as he walked away.

It was only after the footsteps had faded that she allowed herself to look. She could see the boy through the window, sitting on the balcony railing, staring listlessly at the empty sky. He was unaware of how brightly he stood out against the backdrop of the dying world, like the last star before the pre-dawn darkness.

Disquiet rippled at the edges of the witch's awareness, but she refused to acknowledge it. She was, after all, the great Maleficent, and no mere boy would ever be a threat to her.

* * *

**No More Promises **

Prompt: promises

Riku wouldn't make promises anymore.

He had promised Sora when they were little, and their world had been made of sand and sea and salt water taffy, that they would always be friends. Then he had let the darkness in and it had devoured their world, then found a place to roost in his heart. He had raised a deadly blade against the little boy he used to chase across the sand, confident that in the end he would be the only one standing.

"You've never broken any promises to me," Sora laughed and accepted the offered hand up, having lost both keyblade and battle in their latest round of sparring.

He had promised Kairi after she fell from the sky that he would always protect her. He vanquished the monsters in her closet and the spiders under her bed. Then he had unlocked the door, and even though he thought he was still protecting her, the truth was, he was the threat from which she needed the most protection.

"You're always there to save me," Kairi kissed his cheek as she cast Cure, soothing away the burns and cuts.

He had promised Mickey that he would never give up. Standing at the cross-roads, about to part ways, it had been hard to deny the mouse king anything, and even though he hadn't really thought the promise would end quite the way the king hoped for, he was willing to try. Then he had found himself in a city of darkness and nothing, about to lose his only chance to save his friends, and he had stopped fighting the darkness that was clawing at his heart and become what he had fought so hard not to be.

"You're my star child," Mickey said fondly to the drowsy boy sprawled beside he and his wife on the picnic blanket. "No matter how dark it gets you always shine."

Riku wouldn't make promises anymore. Instead, he spent his time trying to keep the ones he had already made.

* * *

**Destiny**

Prompt: Here Comes trouble

"Why does looking at you always tick me off?"

An odd sensation passed through Sora at those words, and he turned to look at the speaker, feeling cool and confident and not quite himself. He couldn't exactly say he felt unlike himself either.

"I donno," Sora replied. "Maybe it's destiny."

Seifer froze, unable to explain the sudden shiver that went down his spin, or why he felt like this scene had played out before.

"Do I know you from somewhere else?" Seifer demanded.

"Not in this life," Sora grinned, sudden understanding showing itself like Roxas' edged smile. "So, you gonna cooperated with destiny like a good little boy?"

Seifer glared, fingers flexing as if itching to grab a sword, though it was unlikely he had ever handled anything more vicious than a struggle club. Maybe a baseball bat; this was Seifer after all.

Suddenly he relaxed, his smug sneer falling back into its usual place. "I don't cooperate with anything."

Sora snorted softly.

"Meet me at the sandlot," Seifer tossed over his shoulder as he walked away. "I'll show you how friendly I can be."

Sora was more amused than the conversation had really warranted. In his other life, he hadn't had much of a choice, but in this life, he had every intention of challenging destiny head on.


End file.
